Search Results for: Climate change

International efforts are stepping up to scope and map what it will take to wean chemical manufacturing off its high dependence on oil and gas feedstock for chemicals that are then used to make plastics, fertilisers and other important products.

Options include using building-block raw materials from biomass instead of fossil-fuel feedstock; boosting the yield of chemicals for a given quantity of feedstock; and, applying advanced recovery and recycling technologies in circular economy approaches.…

A WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel will assess whether import restrictions created by the European Union (EU) to reduce the use of carbon-intensive biofuels comply with global trading rules.

The Indonesian government is challenging portions of the EU’s renewable energy directive (RED) linked to EU guidance limiting the indirect land use change (ILUC) of biofuel feedstock cultivation.…

Switzerland may be a small country of 8.5 million people, with an area of 41,285 km², 60% of which is mountainous, but its paint and varnish industry is substantial and growing, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Of course, it helps that Switzerland is rich.…

The tobacco market in Greece, once one of the world’s most robust, is struggling with declining consumption trends seen across Europe and north America, as well as a growing illicit trade.

Vassilis Mastorakis, marketing director of the Karelia Tobacco Company Inc, Greece’s largest cigarette manufacturer and exporter, told Tobacco Journal International that “smoking of cigarettes in Greece has been in a declining trend over the last 36 months [July 2017-June 2020] by almost 7% (2020 versus 2018) while the roll-your-own (RYO) consumption is slightly growing by almost 2 percent over the same period.”…

A consensus is growing within Somalia’s higher education services that the current tertiary sector needs to be better aligned with the country’s developing labour market demands as its economy emerges from years of conflict.

There has been a significant level of agreement to the conclusions of a new report highlighting such concerns – ‘Somalia’s Education Sector: Fostering Skills Through A Demand-driven Education System’, co-produced by a think tank the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies and the City University of Mogadishu.…

REGULATING money laundering within the gaming sector needs to be tough because of the potential to move large sums of money through regulated casinos, sports and online betting services. While placing an accurate number on the amount of money laundered through the sector is impossible, the scope for doing so is illustrated by the sector’s huge size – according to international market researchers Research & Markets, the industry’s worldwide turnover should reach USD525 billion by 2023 (1).…

A SHIFT towards home-based work during the Covid-19 epidemic has raised multiple challenges for AML/CFT regulatory compliance departments, from changes in consumer behaviour that affects transaction monitoring, to digitally onboarding new customers, and heightened risks of illicit crime and fraud.

The first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdowns this spring especially stretched financial institutions’ regulatory compliance departments to their limits, said Patrick Gerard Dahill, head of AML and financial crime recruitment at Barclay Simpson, in London.…

BOTH the Australian as well as the New Zealand cosmetics and personal care market have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, trends towards increasing purchases of health conscious and natural products have continued, with local brands gaining momentum, indicating how the Australasian personal care product market will develop once the coronavirus has lost its bite.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) continues to struggle to clamp down on fraud within its revenue collection and spending programmes – making progress, but with major scams still emerging within the EU’s complex international decision-making systems.

In its latest annual ‘fight against fraud’ report (1) (2), covering 2019, the European Commission reports that 939 discovered irregularities were reported as fraudulent (8% of the number), involving EUR461.4 million in lost money (28% of that affected by irregularities).…

When Fatima Alaouia-Zohra stepped up to become the first female director-general of Morocco’s textile and clothing industry association AMITH last September (2019), she was ready to lead this important near-sourcing manufacturing hub through a process of massive change.

Little did she know that within months she would also be facing the gargantuan challenge of steering the industry through the Covid-19 global crisis, a pandemic that while hugely disruptive, creates opportunities for Moroccan clothing and textile makers.…